PC for video editing - Where do I put my money?

[neorichieb1971]

Video editing is very processor intensive stuff especially if you want to convert and edit quickly. Can you recommend or at least tell me which type of system or components would be best suited for my needs?

I would be using Moviemaker, Power Director and a host of video converters. I was thinking high ram, fast processor, but I am not sure if any graphics cards or accelerators give benefits in this area of software.

I don't think I will be doing much gaming, but that might change. I haven't owned a tower since 1997..

Thanks for your consideration,

Richard.

[Specineff]

I put together a video-edit build for a church using a 6-core AMD FX6300, and 16GB of budget ram. If you don't mind taking a chance, you could look for a used Core I7 processor on Ebay. Don't rely only on the stock cooler, get an aftermarket replacement.

[Ixmucane2]

A good video card should be important for GPU-accelerated rendering and encoding, but you probably want a recent but almost budget card rather than expensive high end gaming models. Match what your expected video software would like to use (e.g. CUDA drivers) and what the video card supports.

Also, consider a comprehensive water cooling solution for CPU, video card and other hot spots; it costs less than one case of overheating.

[Blinge]

Correct me if I'm wrong but for intensive video rendering you'll need a beefy video card, probably beefy everything.

Get a decent, NEW CPU and overclock it, definitely get a better fan or cooling system for it. I'm not familiar with water coolers myself.

[beatsgo]

Correct me if I'm wrong but for intensive video rendering you'll need a beefy video card, probably beefy everything.

Get a decent, NEW CPU and overclock it, definitely get a better fan or cooling system for it. I'm not familiar with water coolers myself.

Depends on what video editing software you're using (CUDA, OpenGL...), but overall yes you'll benefit from using a decent video card. It will decrease frame skipping especially for more higher quality videos. If you're planning to do movie theater quality videos, then I will look into getting a higher tier GPU then.

I'll definitely go for water coolers if you're planning to OC your CPU. Corsair has a good line of CPU Water Coolers. There's some good CPU Fans out there if you're on a tighter budget, like the Cool Master Hyper 212.

[nasty_wolverine]

Where do I put my money?

in the bank...

sorry couldnt resist

[brentsg]

Examine your software to see if it is/can be GPU accelerated. Go from there..

You want to use your GPU for video editing if possible, because so many actions are suited for parallel processing and the GPU is ideal for that. It's a primary reason the new Mac Pro has dual GPUs. Also check to see if the software, and your tasks are candidates for Intel Quick Sync. The latest Intel CPUs have hardware support for very fast video encoding, but the parameters for which it's used are pretty narrow.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... neral.html

[neorichieb1971]

AMD A10 6800K - Apparently this has built in graphics card
16GB 2 x 8 DDR3 1600MHZ
120GB Solid State HDD (primary)
2TB secondary 7200RPM drive (secondary)

£479.

I am getting Windows 7 for free.

At the moment I am using a Acer laptop with an I3 which struggles with power director. If Power director runs fine on the above spec I am happy with that price. I haven't chosen a monitor yet. Its the preview screen that i'm worried about in power director. I don't care how long it takes to render the output. I only do about 2 videos a month. But when I'm previewing the changes it stutters like crazy at the moment making it difficult to see the output with any great detail.

Thanks.

[brentsg]

I saw some Google snips about older versions of Powerdirector using CUDA (Nvidia), but current advertising shows AMD's logo too.

The system you listed doesn't seem like something designed to handle video editing elegantly though, tbh. Even for weekend warrior editing and encoding, I wouldn't want to be using the graphics integrated in the GPU. That's a recipe for slow. Also, I noticed in all of the manufacturers promo materials, they're using Intel CPUs for their speed tests. No idea if that's indicative of anything, but AMD is (sadly) a lower performance budget part these days.

The question is what's "fast enough".. No idea on that, never used that software. Also slow or fast is subjective and all that.

[neorichieb1971]

CoolerMaster K350 Case 1x Front USB 3.0 1x Front USB 2.0 & Front Audio
ASUS Z97-K : 4x Rear USB3.0: 2x Rear USB2.0: 2x Front USB2.0
Intel® Core™ i7 4790K Quad Core 4x 4GHz 8MB Cache (8 Threads) TurboBoost Upto 4.4GHz
Corsair 500Watt PSU
Coolermaster Hyper TX3 EVO CPU Cooler & Heatsink *QUIET*
Corsair XMS3 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600MHz
Samsung 840 EVO 120GB SATA 3 Solid State Drive 540MB/s read, 410MB/s write
2TB 7200RPM SATA 3 Hard Drive
nVidia GeForce GTX 750 2GB


This is what I was recommended at first but the £1000+ price tag put me off.

[Blinge]

Have you been using http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/ ?

found the site very useful when building my rig.

I just picked the parts you specified as far as i could without exact details like who's making your HDD, it came to £753.64.
Are you putting this together yourself or ordering a custom build?

[neorichieb1971]

Have you been using http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/ ?

found the site very useful when building my rig.

I just picked the parts you specified as far as i could without exact details like who's making your HDD, it came to £753.64.
Are you putting this together yourself or ordering a custom build?

Well, i'm picking the brains of a work colleague who told me to go to overclockers.co.uk. He told me AMD is the most cost effective system right now so I used their ibuild setup and thats how I got the AMD spec.

A local establishment in Bedford is also an option at powerc.com. Tom from there churned out a INTEL I7 office extreme PC for £1009.

I haven't bought anything yet.

I think the best way to describe what I want is this.

A PC system and monitor for around £1000, that has parts that will aid in the applications of video processing. I already have speakers. I will buy mouse and keyboard separately because I want to buy it locally since the interface is something I want hands on with.

I know 2 people that can build PC's. I don't know how to do it myself though. But I am sure both would do it for free.

Thank you.

[neorichieb1971]

Found this site which is similar to yours but the options are fewer, which makes making a choice a little easier for someone like me.





£744.

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk

I only came across this because I googled PC for video editing. Seems to have a section for it.

[system11]

I didn't like Power Director, and ended up using Sony Vegas instead. That would blow loads of your budget straight away though.

[neorichieb1971]

The problem with expensive video editing software is that if you don't like it you've wasted a lot of money.

I don't much like power director either, but it has a very nice video converter for 5.1 surround sound that seems to make my videos flow smoother at 25fps than it does 30fps on other conversions. However, My Panny camera is native 50fps and 25 is a good number that fits nicely into 50.

At the moment I am using moviemaker for quick edits and putting them through power director converter for PS3 compatibility. I will have a look at Sony Vegas, I heard its 500 notes.

[Fudoh]

Lightworks http://www.lwks.com/ is a fantastic free video editing suite. There's a $250 pro version available, but the free version is very powerful already.

[beatsgo]

My personally favorite is kdenlive for one big reason: Open-Source "Lightwork-sque" video editor. And it's pretty damn easy to use. Only available for Linux, but worth checking out.

[nasty_wolverine]

My personally favorite is kdenlive for one big reason: Open-Source "Lightwork-sque" video editor. And it's pretty damn easy to use. Only available for Linux, but worth checking out.

used it before, and for someone who had never used a video-editor before, figured it out in 10 mins, produced sequenced video in under 2 hrs. Its awesome.